"It's been divisive": How Greater Manchester's universities are combatting students using AI to cheat

manchestereveningnews.co.uk:

The fight to combat students using artificial intelligence (AI) to cheat at Greater Manchester’s universities has become ‘divisive’, as new software is introduced to curb the practice.

Currently, most universities tell students to use software developed by Turnitin to submit essays — as it has anti-plagiarism software built-in.

On Tuesday (April 4), Turnitin announced a new feature called ‘AI writing detection capabilities’ (AIWDC). The feature is designed to ‘identify the use of AI writing tools including ChatGPT’, and claims it can do so ‘with 98 percent confidence’, therefore allowing ‘educators to analyse and review the authenticity of academic work’. READ MORE: Disgraced GMP officers sacked after probe into racist WhatsApp group where members called themselves 'the gods of north Manchester' “Educators told us that being able to accurately detect AI written text is their first priority right now,” said Turnitin CEO, Chris Caren, on announcing the feature. “They need to be able to detect AI with very high certainty to assess the authenticity of a student's work and determine how to best engage with them,” he went on.

Turnitin ‘only flag something when we are 98 percent sure it is written by AI based on data that was collected and verified in our controlled lab environment’, added Chief Product Officer, Annie Chechitelli.